ROMAN REMAINS

Hello, and welcome to this month's edition of the Autolycan.  I couldn't get a June edition out what with holidays, City of Culture commitments and so on, and consequently have been sitting on this story from the Telegraph about a Roman sarcophagus for some time.  Although not as long as the sarcophagus itself has clearly been sitting around.  Hope you like it, and as usual please pass it on to others if you do.

It was sent to me by an American friend who more recently has been in touch to say that a mutual friend in Colorado has recently been involved in a serious car accident.  So this story is dedicated to Colorado Katy - hope you make a full and speedy recovery and look forward to seeing you when possible!

ROMAN REMAINS

Blenheim Palace discovers marble 'flowerpot' is actually £300k Roman coffin

                                                                                                     Daily Telegraph

Of all the many differences between our way of life here in dear old England and that of our friends across the Atlantic, with whom – even now – we enjoy a 'special relationship', one of the most puzzling to my way of thinking concerns songs. Not just any songs, that is, but songs about towns. It's not the big fish I'm talking about – New York, Las Vegas, Chicago on their side of the water; London, Glasgow, Liverpool on ours but the smaller fry. Luckenbach, Texas is a town most Brits will never had heard of, largely perhaps because it 'maintains a ghost town feel with its small population' or so Wikipedia thinks and who am I to argue? Didn't stop Waylon Jennings having a hit with a song about a rather well to do couple who lived there and boasted 'a four car garage.' Classic country music stuff. Creedence Clearwater Revival were smitten by Lodi, California, of which few Brits will have heard either, but dynamism and Lodi clearly go hand in hand, if their very own publication 'Welcome to the City of Lodi' (www.lodi.gov) is anything to go by. Follow the link and what do you find? First time I tried the very first item on the first page breathlessly informed me that 'the utility payment dropbox will be moved to near Church St entrance in City Hall parking lot.' Wow! Intrigued, I had another go today and found that 'we have added electric card readers on many of our doors in the civic center to provide better control of secured areas, after experiencing a high level of nuisance entries to these facilities.' A high level of nuisance entries, eh? Dutiful citizens trying to pay their utility bills in the wrong place? Lodi buffs desperate for their next fix of Lodi action? 'Hey - what's next? Gotta be big! How you guys gonna beat moving the dropbox?' No wonder Creedence lamented 'Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again.'

But at least it gets a mention. On our side of the ocean no budding Tony Bennett or Gene Pitney ever left his heart in Wolverhampton or regretted his misdeeds 24 hours from Grimsby. No-one – ever - begged someone to show them the way to Amersham. By the time I get to Felixstowe? No. I've got a gal in K-E-T-T-E-R-I-N-Gee! What a gal! Even more no. But we don't do very well on the more photogenic places either. There's not many mentions of Oxford beyond David Bowie's 1995 assertion that 'I have not been to Oxford town' and you'll search in vain for much mention of Canterbury since Chaucer's attempts to 'corner ye pakkage toure markette' as the little-known Tour Manager's Tale puts it. And for all its historic connections with Dukes and Churchills, Blenheim is celebrated in song about as often as nearby Swindon.

Which is odd, because thanks to the Telegraph, we now know that it has a longer and more illustrious history even than we supposed, a history that thinks nothing of throwing up the odd fourth century Roman sarcophagus filled with tulips to baffle 21^st century scholarship. So what was it doing there? I investigated.

The first surprise was that the word 'sarcophagus' derives from the Greek sark (flesh) and phagos' (eating). It is literally a device for decomposing the flesh of – presumably inconvenient – stiffs. Stiffs you'd rather other people, especially perhaps your enemies didn't know about. According to the early Roman historian Fallacious (184 – 241 AD) one of the very first rulers of Rome took the name Sarcophagus, having disposed of Romulus and Remus by dumping them in a stone flower planter which he quickly realised had some very handy properties. As his power grew Sarcophagus extended his influence far and wide, and by the time BC gave way to AD was sending parties of men to sail with early raiding Gauls to Britain. It is interesting to note that this practice continued for centuries after Sarcophagus died, so that later Viking invaders were accompanied by Romans on their voyages to Greenland and, ultimately, America.

Both Gauls and Vikings thought it odd that the Romans insisted on decorating the boats with planters full of flowers wherever they went, but were astute enough to realise that presenting themselves as itinerant and eccentric gardeners rather than warlike invaders bamboozled the bucolic and rather naïve Brits no end. Indeed, it was Erik the Red himself who coined the phrase 'the peony is mightier than the sword', while his countrymen composed yet more of their interminable Norse sagas. The Romans joined in these as best they could, having been led to believe they were hymning the greatness of Sarcophagus. It wasn't until the publication of the first Norse – Latin dictionary many years later that they might have seen that they were in fact questioning the wisdom of carting stone planters round the North Sea, but the Romans never realised this since try as they might none of them ever got beyond the first couple of lines. As it turned out though, Sarcophagus may have been greater than even they imagined, and modern historians have credited him with creating the first Single European Market of several million people, albeit only in flower planters in which he did a roaring trade with credulous natives who never had anywhere to put their Spring bulbs.

Sarcophagus exulted in the growing strength of his Empire but whilst strong in foreign conquest he neglected stability at home. His violent son, Mutinous the Brute, seized the opportunity to raise a band of conspirators who overthrew him, declared himself Mutinous Seizer and buried his father in one of his own eponymous flower planters, surrounded by clumps of daffodils and crocuses. 'Et tulips, Brute!' they laughed when describing the sumptuous floral display which Sarcophagus was unwittingly feeding.

It wasn't long though, before Mutinous was himself overthrown by his young protégé, Precocious Discipulus, and in turn found himself pushing up not merely daisies. The popularity of this method of despatch grew, and the modern garden centre with its plethora of planters of all shapes and sizes has its origins in this period.

As an aside, it should be noted that the sale of tropical fish from garden centres began much later when the Emperor Aquarius realised that some species would eat anything and offered an alternative means of disposing of enemies. To this day though, nobody has put forward a convincing explanation as to why these centres are filled with Christmas merchandise from about June on. Some scholars have speculated that the word Centre was corrupted to Santa in about the 14^th century, but others, more darkly, posit confusion between the words 'sleigh' and 'slay.'

Many generations of Precocious Discipulus's successors have since travelled to Northern Europe, where they are still shrewdly exploiting the insatiable demand for sarcophagi. Mostly these have been cheap inferior models suitable mainly for flowers, but there have also been some much higher quality models to be sold only to very special clients and it is known that Churchill himself bought at least one of these for Blenheim. This was not of course to rid himself of some embarrassing corpse but accidentally, after looking even deeper into the glass than usual, whereupon some slurred comments of his in praise of a recently deceased general were misinterpreted.

'Hell of a fellow,' eulogised Churchill. 'Lion of a man. Like a tiger. No, not tiger. More cold blooded. Shark. Need more like him. Shark of a guy.'

'Sorry, sir, what's that we need more of?'

'Shark of a guy.'

At least Blenheim's gardeners were pleased.

Other descendants of Precocious, recognising that their forefathers had travelled to America, now decided on a major advance into the American sarcophagus market. Assiduously, they flattered and built up their influence with powerful men, in particular politicians, who in turn saw mutual advantage in co-operation. After a while, Presidents themselves began to humour them by adopting secretive Roman code names for use in their dealings together. The world may have known him as JFK, but strictly within the trade Licentious l was in office from 1961 to 3, to be followed by Mendacious Felonious from 1969 to 1974 and Licentious ll from 1993 to 2001. Sarcophagus dealers are uncertain how best they should relate to the presidency of Calamitas Obnoxious the Duplicitous.

And here we come to a strange truth, for while we Brits may not celebrate our towns in song in the same way that Americans do, the reverse is true when it comes to political leaders. We have a proud tradition, which starts with Won't You Come Home, Disraeli, wends its way through Lloyd George's curious relationship with my father, then alights briefly in the Garden of Eden before moving on to the composite Maggie May, who has yet to be completely taken away, although perhaps it won't be long. I am not aware that Calamitas Obnoxious has yet been hymned in song – for one thing some of the rhymes might be tricky – but if I'm wrong no doubt my American friends will be the first to let me know.

ANAGRAM CORNER

CALAMITAS OBNOXIOUS

?

USA BOOS TOXIC ANIMAL